this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
320 points (97.1% liked)
Asklemmy
43963 readers
1860 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Try it like this: go for a walk in nature and focus on the senses. Try to really feel yourself walking, feel the clothes on your body, the wind, the distant sounds. As things enter your perception, be grateful for them. The dogs and children, the leaves and sun. Perhaps contemplate how: (1) this sensation (of ex "dog") feels inside you (2) the miracle of its construction, the billions of particles, the quantum effects underneath, and the orchestral perfection of its movement (3) all the relationships people have with their dogs (4) how dogs affect the entire world
This technique gives you a large "surface area" for gratitude droplets to coalesce. With a little repetition, you can get very high doing this technique, making it fun and self reinforcing. Ultimately all sensations can be integrated into your larger self-experience, changing the small, separate identity, into a large all encompassing compassionate one
My understanding: the fundamental skills are attention (focus/zoning in), awareness (broad attention of sensation), and gratitude (compassion/metta/love). You can train these skills whenever is the most enjoyable, including painting, dance, gardening, working out. Gratitude is the one that makes the most happiness up front, check out the "hedonic treadmill"